


Falling

by Duck_Life



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Fallen Castiel, Gen, Hospitals, Human Castiel, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post Episode: s08e23 Sacrifice, Sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-20
Updated: 2013-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-12 09:01:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/809780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean finds Cas after the fall, desperate and hurting. Oneshot. Please R&R!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling

_Ring around the rosy, pocketful of posies, ashes, ashes…_

It’s an aching wandering through the woods, fumbling and stumbling over roots with these feet that fill his shoes like they never used to, and Castiel finds with alarm that gravity has become a weapon against him rather than an irrelevant phenomenon. The night lights up, flares and fades, and he thrashes on like a meandering tornado, the ground fading into the sky and night fading into day as it all swims and melts before his eyes like watercolors mixing together.

Days pass and time erodes, with it coherent thoughts and useful energy, and if it weren’t for the fact that his wings were only charred memories, Cas might call himself floating.

The grass is too bright and the girl turning around and around in a circle with her father is laughing too loud, and suddenly the woods and the night and the walking fall away behind him and the ground flies up to meet him, the man pausing twirling his daughter to turn to Castiel, “ _You alright, man?_ ” to hear only silence.

_…we all fall down._

* * *

_Hi, I’m Icarus…_

The gurney rattles along beneath him like a car, a big black car that growls as it roars down the highway, and he’s drifting, white faces and bright lights popping on the ceiling, _the bright light that seeped out of his neck like smoke in the bright white room-_

“Cas!” Rough hands on the sides of his face, gripping his hair, the rolling motion beneath him jolts to a stop.

“Sir, we need to get him into the hos-”

“No, I know, he’s my- he’s…” The lights disappear, blotted out by Dean who in his worry looks somehow like his father, Dean who’s holding him like he could shatter at any second. “Cas, oh God, Cas, I’m here, okay? It’s gonna be okay. Can you hear me?”

“F-” he tries, his throat rasping around the word.

“Sir, we need to get him inside _now_.”

“F-fell…”

“I know, buddy. I know.”

“…dehydrated and undernourished for days, we need to get him on a drip…”

“It’s gonna be okay, Cas,” Dean says again.

“…hasn’t _slept_ either, it’s like he just _let_ himself die…”

_…I’m falling down._

* * *

_If Heaven’s grief brings Hell’s rain…_

Cas almost wakes up right before he actually wakes up- his eyes snap open for a brief instant and then he’s pulled under again, but the instant lives on the back of his eyelids like a snapshot, an afterimage of a pale hospital room, Dean in the chair beside him holding a book in his lap and rubbing at the edges of his eyes.

When Cas actually wakes up, Dean notices right away and leans over him immediately, concern radiating from him like heat as he glances at Castiel’s eyes, at his hands, at the IV needle plugged into his arm. “Cas?”

“I’m s-sorry,” Castiel says reflexively, looking away from Dean’s eyes, because unconsciousness has not made him forget. “I’m sorry, I-”

“Don’t,” Dean says, leaning back a bit so that Castiel can see the book in his lap is _To Kill A Mockingbird_. “Just don’t. Alright, you’ve been gone a damn _week_ and apparently you didn’t know you were s’posed to _feed_ yourself or _sleep-_ ”

“I’m sorry-”

“ _Stop_.” Dean’s got a hand over Cas’s chest like he’s restraining him. “Please. I’m not tryin’ to blame you, alright? I’m just- look, I don’t give a shit about all those angels or what you did. Maybe I should, but I don’t. I’m workin’ on like two hours of sleep in the past five days and I’m beyond processing a whole lot, so all I care about right now is that you’re alive.”

It’s like Cas doesn’t hear him at all, he’s just staring upward and when Dean finishes he stretches like he thinks he can get up. “I can fix this-”

“Lay down, Cas,” Dean tells him, moving to put his hand back on Cas’s chest.

“I can find a way to get back into Heaven-”

“You’re _human_ , Cas,” Dean says in the authoritative voice he saves for when the people he loves are being utter morons. “And you’re lyin’ in a friggin’ hospital bed. You can’t get out the _door_ , let alone into Heaven.”

“Then…” He dregs in a breath like he’s drowning. “I- I don’t need my vessel. I could- if I’m human, then I just have to… have to…” His chest huffs up and down like a drumbeat as his eyes skitter sunken into his face. “You have to do it. I need you to do it, Dean. Please.”

“Cas-”

“You have to kill me.”

“Dammit, Cas-”

But he’s beginning to panic, his voice raising when he realizes the one person he’s leant on all these years won’t help him. “ _Please_ ,” he begs now, “just do it, please, Dean, you could- you could shoot me outside or just- poison the IV, I don’t- you _know_ , Dean, please just…” The tears are streaming freely down his face now, spotting the white sheets beneath him as he writhes against Dean’s hand on his chest. “And then I could go back to Heaven. _Please_!”

And Dean’s putting his full weight on him now, pinning down his arms with his hands and looking into his face like he can get Cas to look at him, and bile rising in his throat as he calls for a nurse, and _Christ_ , Cas doesn’t look like an angel or a human anymore, just this broken whimpering creature who screams when Dean touches his forehead to his, and he’s still screaming when the nurses sedate him.

_…Then I would trade all my tomorrows for just one yesterday._

* * *

_When I’m falling I’m at peace…_

Sam arrives at the hospital freshly showered and exhausted, but seeing his best friend wan and unconscious is enough of an adrenaline rush to keep him up and running. He takes a moment, standing outside the hospital room and looking in, because Dean doesn’t notice him at first.

Dean’s sitting next to Castiel running his thumb in circles on Cas’s palm over and over again, and even through the window Sam can make out what he’s mouthing- “ _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry_ ,” and he thinks he can guess what Dean’s greatest sin is.

“Hey,” Sam says, clearing his throat before he walks in. When Dean glances up at him, it’s like he’s looking up from a pit, and it takes all of Sam’s self-control not to wince. Instead, he pulls a chair from the other side of the room and sets it on the other side of Cas. They sit there together, like they’re standing guard over the man who used to be an angel. “How’s he doin’?”

“He’ll be okay,” Dean says, but it sounds more like _He’d better be okay_. Sam nods, then-

“How’d they know to call you anyway?”

Dean looks away from Cas to answer Sam, and his expression almost looks like he’s only just noticed his brother’s there. “Oh, I, uh- every time I get a new number, I make sure there’s a slip of paper with it in his coat pocket.”

If it were any other day- seriously, _any_ other day, Sam might smile, but not today. Today he pushes the matted hair back from Castiel’s forehead and settles into the chair beside the cot. Today he kneads the fresh scar on his palm and listens to the roiling worry in his head, and he listens to his brother reading _To Kill A Mockingbird_ aloud like it’s something Biblical.

_…It’s only when I hit the ground it causes all the grief._

**Author's Note:**

> Songs used:  
> "Just One Yesterday"- Fall Out Boy  
> "Lacrimosa" - Regina Spektor  
> "Falling" - Florence + the Machine


End file.
